Last week Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globequoted an unnamed source saying that Dustin Pedroia was “probably done for the year” and now he reports that the Red Sox’s second baseman “is expected to have surgery to insert a screw in his left foot sometime tomorrow at Massachusetts General Hospital.”
Various sources have said previously that Pedroia’s once-fractured foot never healed as quickly as hoped, although just last night manager Terry Francona told Pete Kerzel of MLB.com that his foot is “much improved from last week” and “it’s really encouraging to see the amount of healing that’s taken place in a week.”
According to Cafardo, at least, it apparently wasn’t encouraging enough, because he’s going under the knife after consulting with doctors yesterday.
Boston went 45-30 in the 75 games Pedroia was healthy enough to play this season and he hit .288/.367/.493 for an .860 OPS that’s just nine points off his MVP-winning .869 mark from 2008. In part because of missing Pedroia’s production and in part because of their ridiculous number of other injuries the Red Sox are just 30-28 when the Laser Show isn’t in the lineup.

The Oakland Athletics ballpark saga has dragged on for years and years and years. They’ve considered San Jose, Fremont and at least three locations in Oakland as potential new ballpark sites. The whole process has lasted almost as long as the Braves and Rangers played in their old parks before building new ones.

In the past several months the Athletics’ “stay in Oakland” plan has gained momentum. At one point the club thought it had an agreement to build a new place near Peralta/Laney College in downtown Oakland. There have been hiccups with that, so two other sites — Howard Terminal, favored by city officials — and the current Oakland Coliseum site have remained in play. There are pros and cons to each of these sites, as we have discussed in the past.

One consideration not mentioned before was mentioned by team president David Kaval yesterday: sea level rise due to climate change. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Kaval mentioned twice that the Howard Terminal site would have to take into account sea-level rise and transportation concerns — and he said there have been conversations with the city and county and the Joint Powers Authority about developing the Coliseum site.

The Howard Terminal/Jack London Square area of Oakland has been identified as susceptible to dramatically increased flooding as a result of projected sea level rise due to climate change. On the other side of the bay both the San Francisco Giants and Golden State Warriors have had to consider sea level rise in their stadium/arena development plans. Now it’s the Athletics’ turn.

Fifteen of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams play in coastal areas and another five of them play near the Great Lakes. While some of our politicians don’t seem terribly concerned about it all, people and organizations who will have skin the game 10, 20 and 50 years from now, like the Oakland Athletics, are taking it into account.